Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Things You’ll Need:
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wedding officiant
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wedding clergy
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rabbi
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wedding minister
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marriage officiant
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wedding minister fee
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wedding minister gratuity
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wedding rings
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wedding ceremony
Step1
Most officiants charge from $275 to $900 for a wedding ceremony. It all depends on your wedding ceremony location, what things you feel you need from your wedding minister and how busy they are. The busier the wedding minister, the more expensive they'll be generally. The busier the officiant, frankly, the better seal of approval you have from everyone else.
Step2
Most wedding vendors will ask for a deposit in advance and the remainder to be paid on the day of the wedding. Do remember to make a prompt deposit as wedding professionals do get calls and emails constantly. A typical wedding professional gets anywhere from 10 to 100 requests a day. That's a lot time requests to be juggling. Frankly, the first person to commit by putting down a deposit is the one who wins that time slot.
Step3
Do make sure to pay by your wedding minister's balance in cash or your license may not be filed in time for the check to clear. Even worse, if you are traveling after your wedding and your check bounces, you may find that you are not married by the time you return from your honeymoon. A wedding officiant is required to file your marriage license within a certain amount of time with the county, usually 10 days. If they are paid by check and it bounces while you are in Tahiti then you may have a bit of a problem as that wedding clergy doesn't know if you'll be paying on your bad check.
Step4
What is the proper tip for an officiant? $75 - $150 is the proper officiant gratuity and if that seems to be too much to you, consider this: your wedding officiant is probably the least paid of most of the wedding professionals present at your wedding and yet you need that one person at your wedding ceremony MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE there, or else. . . you wouldn't be married. Yes, you don't need to tip a wedding official but think of it this way: it's good karma and a good way to start your marriage with a positive vibe from the one person who joined you as husband and wife.
Step5
How do you tip your wedding minister? There's a good time to pay the gratuity when you pay the balance of your officiant fee. The best time to pay is at the signing of the marriage license.
Step6
Why should you tip? Because t.i.p. stands for to insure proper service. Your wedding officiant is required to file the license for you after your wedding. I would consider this tip to insure proper filing.
Step7
How do you pay and tip with class? It's not so difficult after all. Tipping anyone should be done with joy and gratitude.
To the wedding bring an envelope with each wedding vendor's name on it and put the remainder of what you owe each wedding professional in cash in the envelope. If you are in a large wedding, hand these to your best man or the father of the bride (which makes him feel more important) and tell them to distribute the money for you to the proper person (not just an employee).
There is always a shuffling of papers from each person and when the wedding officiant signs it you can easily hand the envelope over with a "Thank you!"
Novice
Comments
yourmajesty18 said
on 4/30/2008 That's incredible... ($275 fee + $75 tip ) * 250 typical work days a year = $87,500... that's $35k more per year than I make, and I have to pay for this entire wedding myself... Plus, I work more than 250 days a year for roughly 8 to 10 hours a day... rather than the 4 to 6 hours the officiant is required to be present at *some* weddings. Sounds like a good gig to me... even without the tip and with the minimal $275 fee according to the post they are still raking almost $70k... still not a bad take for part-time work.
moonlyte said
on 11/1/2007 Great article! Most people don't even think about tipping the officiant. My husband performs weddings and about 2% of couples tip him. Performing weddings is his JOB - and therefore it's our income. He doesn't have another job to back him up. AND if you take your time getting ready for your wedding, and it starts 45 minutes late, definitely tip that officiant, as he's had to hang around and wait for you to get ready so he can do the job he was hired to do. Nothing bothers me (the wife of the officiant who drives the car) more than having to hang around an extra hour or two and then not even getting a tip! I know it sounds greedy, but we generally only do ONE wedding a day so we can focus entirely on the ONE couple. We could easily book two or three a day but out of respect to our brides and grooms we don't do that- yet.